Lessons in this module highlight numerous important developments that diffused into or from regions adjacent to the Mediterranean: horse riding and the wheel, food crops and spices, and three important language groups and writing systems, for example. Other lessons trace the expansion of trade networks and the cultural exchange they made possible in the arts of living, religion, war and statecraft. A lesson on Carthage and a bridge lesson on empires explore the phenomenon of empire building and how it affected power relations and ordinary people as boundaries shifted through warfare and diplomacy. The central theme of all the lessons is the scope of the Mediterranean during this period. The broad questions they pose are, “What lands and people are in contact within and beyond the shores of the Mediterranean?” and “What impact did these contacts have in creating new possibilities and challenges?”

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Title

OSPM Module 2: Download Complete Teaching Module (3 FILES)

Description

Module 2: The Mediterranean and Beyond in Antiquity

Lessons in this module highlight numerous important developments that diffused into or from regions adjacent to the Mediterranean: horse riding and the wheel, food crops and spices, and three important language groups and writing systems, for example. Other lessons trace the expansion of trade networks and the cultural exchange they made possible in the arts of living, religion, war and statecraft. A lesson on Carthage and a bridge lesson on empires explore the phenomenon of empire building and how it affected power relations and ordinary people as boundaries shifted through warfare and diplomacy. The central theme of all the lessons is the scope of the Mediterranean during this period. The broad questions they pose are, “What lands and people are in contact within and beyond the shores of the Mediterranean?” and “What impact did these contacts have in creating new possibilities and challenges?”

Creator

Susan Douglass

Source

Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean: A World History Curriculum Project for Educators

Date

Rights

Text

Teachers’ Introduction to Module 2

Geographic scope: “Where is the Mediterranean” in this period?

This question refers to the question of what areas around and adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea during this period impacted the life of its inhabitants?

The Mediterranean region is an arena that is usually the primary focus of world history after the syllabus briefly touches on “pre-history.” The river valleys of the Fertile Crescent are often mistakenly viewed as the cradle of agriculture and domestication of animals, when in fact, both began in adjoining regions. River valleys could only be settled on a large scale when the diffusion of crops and mastery of simple irrigation technology had been achieved elsewhere in the highlands on the margins of the river valleys. Only then could the much larger-scale problems of major river systems be mastered.

The changes that took place in the formation of cities, large states, and empires—what is often called “civilization”—are seen by world historians as expressions of complexification and intensification. Human organization got more intense (more people, more technologically able to exploit the environment and fellow humans, more accumulating learning and exchanging), and more complicated (social specialization and stratification, monumental and sophisticated ways of doing things, human systems of law, communication/learning, and beliefs).

Crucial technologies that enabled these changes and solved their resulting problems had developed by the first millennium BCE—and many of them even by around 3000 BCE. Irrigation and water-raising technologies, mining and metallurgy with alloys of different metals, transportation breakthroughs such as riding and saddling horses and camels and hitching them to wheeled carts and chariots, and advanced weapons were just a few major developments that emerged within, outside of, and in connection with the Mediterranean region.

On the less material side, systems and tools that facilitated the recording and sharing of ideas developed after 3000 BCE, including writing systems and materials, culminating in the development of alphabetic writing systems and libraries for storing knowledge. In China, the invention of paper around this time would impact the Mediterranean region a few centuries later. Scientific, administrative, and religious learning made great strides.

Lessons in this module highlight numerous important developments that diffused into or from regions adjacent to the Mediterranean: horse riding and the wheel, food crops and spices, and three important language groups and writing systems, for example. Other lessons trace the expansion of trade networks and the cultural exchange they made possible in the arts of living, war and statecraft. A lesson on Carthage and a bridge lesson on empires explore the phenomenon of empire-building and how it affected power relations and ordinary people as boundaries shifted through warfare and diplomacy.

The central theme of all the lessons, however, is the scope of the Mediterranean during this period. The broad questions they pose are, “What lands and people are in contact within and beyond the shores of the Mediterranean?” and “What impact did these contacts have in creating new possibilities and challenges?”

Periodization: “When is the Mediterranean” in this period?

Following the World History For Us All periodization scheme (See World History: the Big Eras), this module bridges between Era 3 (10,000 to 1000 BCE) and Era 4 (1200 BCE to 300 CE), and extends somewhat beyond it. Important elements arrived in the region from around the fourth millennium, and from the second to the first millennium BCE. Complex societies built upon and intensified the foundational elements that were developed toward the end of Era 3. During Era 4, urbanization increased, giant empires arose, literacy and science expanded, and the great world religions or belief systems arose. All of these developments involved people of many different languages, ethnicities and cultures, and the Mediterranean region was involved in all of them.

The decision about where to end this era is subject to debate. World history periodization for the “classical period” often ends at 300 CE or 500 CE. The scholars who advised us on this project emphasized that neither of these dates adequately reflects important continuities in the Mediterranean region, particularly because the rise of Islam did not initially represent a rupture. The famous thesis by Henri Pirenne, according to which Mediterranean unity forged under the Roman Empire “broke up”[1] and various invaders such as Vandals, Vikings, Muslims disrupted urbanization and trade, does not deserve to set the tone for life in the Mediterranean. Whether in the eastern regions where trade continued, or in the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily in which new connections with the east and the south were forged, or on the north African coast, important continuities with the past in trade and ways of life can be detected. A smoother transition with the so-called medieval or post-classical period might push the end-date to 700 CE or beyond, when the initial period of the spread of Islam, Arabic language, and the consolidation of Muslim states took hold. With that in mind, however, it should be remembered that the unitary Islamic state began to fragment almost as soon as it was created, especially from a Mediterranean perspective. The history of this period and region during the centuries after 700 CE were not a contest between two monoliths—Islamdom and Christendom.

Events in the Mediterranean after 500 CE involve the Sassanid and Byzantine contest, the spread and coexistence of multiple varieties of Christianity, the continuing existence of Jewish communities, and the presence of Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Mazdeans and very diverse local religious traditions. With regard to trade, the period includes the continuation of the incense and spice routes, the introduction of courtly silk manufacturing centers in the Mediterranean region, and the movement of artisans and styles in architecture, glass and mosaic techniques.

If an end date for the period must be chosen, then 700 CE would perhaps be more logical, as mentioned above, for the conquests of Iberia and southern Europe, and further afield, the conquests in South Asia. The growing Frankish influence in Western Europe, the division of Christianity between Latin-speaking and Greek-speaking parts is another factor around 700 CE.

Most importantly for students, we need to appreciate that historians no longer search for definitive ruptures like Pirenne’s Mediterranean break-up, as much as they look for elements of both continuity and change, even when major new developments appear on the horizon. Just as the Mediterranean did not cease to exist as a zone of interaction upon the voyages of Columbus and Vasco Da Gama, it did not split on a jagged axis into Occidental and Oriental halves with the rise of Islam in 632 CE.

Title

Subject

Description

The lesson describes the so-called Mediterranean Diet, its history and significance in the modern era, and traces the history and geography of the foods and culture of which it is made, beginning with the defining role played by olive, date, grape, legume and grain cultivation as well as sources of protein such as seafood and domesticated animals (goats, sheep, cattle). Other foods that were indigenous or introduced into the Mediterranean region such as fruits and vegetables can be introduced through further research into regional recipes. This lesson will also expand on the theme of overlapping and diverse regions of the Mediterranean and how they contributed over time to its ways of life and culture, trade within and beyond the region, and its world-historical influence.

Creator

Susan Douglass

Source

Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean: A World History Curriculum Project for Educators

Date

Rights

Duration

1-2 class periods if done as collective learning activity

Objectives

• Students will be able to identify and describe major components of the Mediterranean diet in terms of plant and animal products, such as olives, grapes, dates, legumes, seafood, fruits such as citrus and pomegranate, and locate their areas of origin and cultivation on a map of the region.

• They will relate the history of olive, date, and grape cultivation and the neolithic beginnings of agriculture and animal husbandry.

• They will explain the modern history and nutritional significance of the Mediterranean diet (UNESCO heritage program, health benefits).

• They will describe the regions where typically Mediterranean foods grow, and how their cultivation affects modes of life in the region (agriculture and irrigation, fishing, transhumance, etc.)

Lesson Plan Text

1. Introduce the lesson by asking students what they know about the components of a good diet, the ideal proportion of food groups, and its effects on the health of individuals. Conversely, ask students about a poor diet and its effects on our health. Show selected slides from Student Handout 2.1.1 (Original source: slides 1, 4, and 18-26 from http://www.slideshare.net/shawee23/mediterranean-countries-and-their-food ). Discuss why this diet became a modern concern after it was identified by Dr. Ancel Keys in 1945, and why UNESCO named it an Intangible Cultural Heritage of several Mediterranean countries in 2010, and why it came to public attention in the late 20th century (widespread understanding of public health concerns such as obesity, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes). Have students evaluate their own diets as a pre-research activity, and perhaps assign students to keep a food diary of their own intake for the week against which to compare what they learn about the Mediterranean diet.

2. Assign each pair or group of students to learn about and research a different element of the Mediterranean diet from Student handouts 2.1.2-2.1.8 and using Student Handout 2.1.9 as a research guide and reporting/presentation framework. At the end of the research period, groups will present what they learned to the group in a creative and entertaining format. Assessment and discussion focuses on how these foods make up a desireable diet (nutritional contribution of each, special characteristics) and why it has become popular as a modern way to improve health. How does the Mediterranean diet compare with students’ individual food diaries?

3. For the historical, cultural and geography component of the lesson, compare the maps on where these foods grow (e.g. limits of the olive tree, date palm), what products were derived for human benefit, and what ways of life their production entailed (dry or irrigated farming, pastoral nomadism, transhumance, associated crafts and technologies (e.g. olive & wine press, grain milling, preservation such as drying and salting, hydraulic technologies, horticultural skills like grafting of trees). Which of these components of the Mediterranean diet stimulated trade, and why (e.g. wine, olive oil for food & light, grain as staple, dates as food for caravan travel), which were suitable for short-and long-distance trade.

4. A key element of the lesson is to appreciate the importance of adjoining regions and a wider “Mediterranean.” For example, they should be able to compare the items that are native to the region and those that were brought into it, as well as those (for example, the package of domesticated grains and animals that arrived from Southwest Asia) and were then disseminated around the Mediterranean and into neighboring regions—and ultimately, around the world (through trade, such as spices, rice, cotton, coffee, then through the Columbian Exchange, and finally through globalization as a contemporary process—of which the Mediterranean Diet is an example).

5. As they learn about trade in the Mediterranean, students can refer to what they know about these foods and trace their significance in trade and the economy of the region over time, and what role they play as global food items today.

6. Optional activity: Provide samples (realia) of olives, dates, barley, various pulses, wheat, fruits, and samples of wool fiber. Alternatively, students may bring in recipes using the items they studied to be collected into a class handout. Teachers can lead a tasting of the plain items or – if there is time and willingness – plan a classroom Mediterranean potluck banquet.

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Lesson 2.2: Mediterranean Trade in the Bronze Age (Shipwrecks, Texts, and Buried Cities)

Subject

Topic 2: Economic and Artistic Exchanges and Technologies: Networks of Trade mapped on the Mediterranean and beyond

Description

Students use primary sources in the form of texts and objects from excavations of Bronze Age sources from the second to the first millennium BCE—the Uluburun shipwreck, the port city of Ugarit, and a passages from the Hebrew Bible and other ancient texts—to examine trade in the Mediterranean region. They analyze and classify the goods from these sources in terms of types of goods, origin, destination and probable uses and consumers, producers and types of laborers involved in the trade circuits. In doing so, students gain a sense of the “footprint” of trade in the Mediterranean region. Extension lesson materials provide material for study of two Arabian caravan cities (Petra and Qaryat al-Faw), and the port of Berenike, along routes that connected with Mediterranean trade routes.

Creator

Susan Douglass

Source

Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean: A World History Curriculum Project for Educators

Date

Rights

Duration

1-3 class periods (depending on whether teacher decides to do extension investigations of the Uluburun and Ugarit sites in full, and ancillary materials on connections with the East)

Objectives

• Students will identify objects and classify them according to their significance as luxury goods, strategic goods, commodities

• They will trace the geographic origins of the goods found in the sources and locate them on a map.

• They will infer the uses of these goods in the places to which they were shipped.

• They will identify goods that came from beyond the Mediterranean region (i.e. Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Central Asia, Arabian Peninsula, Europe, etc.) by type of goods and location of origin.

• They will identify the types of people who produced and transported the goods found on the ships and the city (miners, farmers, pastoral nomads, merchants, artisans, seafarers)

• They will describe the geographic “footprint” covered by Mediterranean trade during the Bronze Age, based on the shipwreck, the city, the biblical text and Amarna letters, answering the question “Where is the Mediterranean during this time?”

Lesson Plan Text

1. Handouts 2.2.1-2.2.4 on the shipwreck, the city, and the two texts about trade and royal gifts give students a chance to see what kinds of goods were traded by sea, where they originated, and what resources were needed to produce them. Students should work in small groups and first classify the goods according to which are luxuries, strategic goods, and which commodities, or ordinary objects of use or foodstuffs (See notes on categories below instructions for examples). They should make lists of the objects, listing the document or site where they were found, and labeling them with L, S, or C for these categories. This will require some discussion and even argument among group members.

2. Many of the objects’ origins are labeled, and the map has images locating them and objects similar to them. Use the outline map of the eastern hemisphere to locate places farther afield (e.g., Baltic amber). When this activity is complete, have the students draw a dotted line in red around the areas from which Mediterranean trade drew for its products during this period. How does this change their thinking about the geographic range of the Mediterranean. How does that compare with trade today?

4. Next, have each student choose 6 objects and create an index card in which to make a small sketch (or paste the images), make notes identifying the object, and list the occupations of people who were involved in producing, transporting, and selling the object (e.g. farmers, artisans, pastoral nomads, slaves, ship crews, soldiers protecting roads, customs officials, palace and court attendants, royal households, etc.) Have students discuss this in their groups, then present their findings. How can the groups of people be further classified? (ex: by social class, rural/urban, pastoral/agricultural, language, ethnicity, region).

5. Use Student Handout 2.2.6 to explore Mediterranean trading links with the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean during this era. The documents include information on the Red Sea port of Berenike, a Roman coin hoard from the Coromandel coast of India, quotes from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. All documents from The Indian Ocean in World History at http://www.indianoceanhistory.org.

6. The map of trade routes for objects common to the shipwreck, the city, and the texts includes ports, maritime routes and overland routes. Student Handout 2.2.7 explores two cities on the caravan routes in the Arabian Peninsula that connected central Asia, southwest Asia, and the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean. The handout contains information on Nabataean Petra and Qaryat al-Faw, in southern and northern Arabia. Students will explore the concept of a “port city” in the desert and the camel transport that made them possible. Read the handout with a view to comparing seaports with caravan stops, and caravan with ship transport. The lesson segment adds to their understanding of artistic and cultural influence to and from the Mediterranean region. This part of the lesson also helps to expand the “footprint” of the Mediterranean as seen through trade links.

8. Additional resources for student research; include an illustrated article with maps on Phoenician seafaring at “Phoenician Economics, Purple Dye, Trade and Mining - World Topics | Facts and Details.” http://factsanddetails.com/world.php?itemid=1982&catid=56&subcatid=371 - 60. Classifying Objects of Trade The following categorizations may be helpful to the teacher in guiding and assessing student discussions of the cargo of the ship from Uluburun, artifacts from the Ugarit excavations and the desert cities, and the texts. Beginning the discussion with definitions of basic commodities, strategic goods, and luxuries is interesting as a way to connect with consumer culture and global trade today. Students might be divided into three groups, assigning the categories; the resulting overlap will make for interesting discussion.

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Lesson 2.3: Essential Innovations into and from the Mediterranean Region, 5000–1000 BCE

Subject

Topic 3: Technology and Cultural Innovation

Description

This lesson traces the origins and diffusion of three major developments and innovations, in transportation, metallurgy, and language, and describes how historians have explored the evidence of their development and movement beyond their origins. These innovations are horse and camel riding and the wheel; mining and metalworking on copper, gold, bronze and iron; and the origins of major language groups in the Mediterranean (indo-european, semitic, afroasiatic (north African). An important part of the lesson is understanding how research into these innovations has revealed interconnections among them. Each of these developments illustrates the way in which the wider world affected and was affected by the Mediterranean region.

Creator

Susan Douglass

Source

Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean: A World History Curriculum Project for Educators

Date

Rights

Duration

2-3 class periods (approx. 1 for each segment)

Objectives

• Students will trace the origins of horse domestication and describe archaeologists’ understanding of the location and transition to horse riding, and its spread from the Eurasian Steppe to the Mediterranean.

• They will locate and trace the chronology of the invention of the wheel and its spread, its relationship to domestication of animals (oxen, donkeys, and horses), and the rise of chariot warfare in the Mediterranean region.

• They will locate and trace the spread of camel transport and military use in the arid zones surrounding the Mediterranean.

• They will locate and trace the origins of metalworking in copper, bronze, and iron and describe its impact on human culture.

• They will identify three major language groups spoken around the Mediterranean and trace their origins (Indo-European, Afro-asiatic, Semitic), and describe their relationship to the emergence of writing systems.

• They will locate regions where these language families are spoken today.

Lesson Plan Text

1. HORSE AND WHEEL: Review with students some domesticated animals from ancient times. Ask if horses are different from sheep, goats and cattle, dogs and cats. Have students think about what horses mean in our culture today.

2. Provide students with Handout 2.3.1. It traces in image and text some evidence of horses, wheels, and chariot warfare. The examples reflect scholars’ efforts to understand when horses were domesticated, when they were ridden and how the spread of the wheel and the spread of Indo-European languages are related to migration from the Eurasian Steppe. Students can work in pairs or groups to answer the question that follows most of the numbered (1-11) evidence examples. They should also locate these places mentioned on a map.

3. Discuss the questions and other ideas as a class. As a culminating activity, print out a copy of Student Handout 2.3.1 and cut out each text and image. Using removable tape, attach each image to the location on the map that it represents. The result will be a classroom display to share, which will show how distant events in Eurasia influenced events and culture in the Mediterranean region in profound ways.

4. METALLURGY & THE MEDITERRANEAN: Introduce or review the concept of the Stone Ages, the first use of metals such as copper and gold, and Bronze Age (3000-2500 BCE), and the Iron Age (1200-1000 BCE), and open the Tiki-Toki timeline of Mediterranean Technology from Module 1). Have students locate Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age on the timeline, and note the length of time each lasted, and how long after the Neolithic Revolution they began, and how long ago they are from the present.

5. Assign Student Handout 2.3.2, a reading on the development of metallurgy (copper, bronze, and iron) and its impact on society (economic, social, political), and the environment. The handout provides a brief overview of the technology with images. Metal artisans and supporting workers (including slaves), such as smiths and miners, merchants, sailors, and soldiers who consumed armor and weapons, were part of an organized industry in the Mediterranean. Tin is fairly rare, so in the search for sources of the metal, trade networks widened, helping to disseminate other ideas. Taking notes by generating a word web or relationship diagram will help to “forge” the connections from this narrative.

6. At the end of this part of the lesson, students should be able to narrate how a single technology can spur interrelated changes in many aspects of society. Another way to enrich this lesson by imagining further connections is to search for bronze objects from the perioid in museums (for example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (http://metmuseum.org/toah). Ask questions about the kind of objects that were made in bronze, and why (temple objects, statues, masks, vessels, ceremonial weapons, ornaments, grave goods), and how they illustrate the connections between different realms of social change.

7. LANGUAGES AND MIGRATION: Ask students to write the following on an index card or paper: (1) how many languages they speak, and where they speak them (at home, on social media sites, when traveling, with multi-lingual family members). (2) Ask them to write one or two similar words in these languages. (3) Ask for 1-2 examples of a root word that appears in the vocabulary of a language they know, e.g the Latin root vox, vocis for “voice” in “vocabulary.”

8. Set-up for Student Handout 2.3.3 As a class, discuss what students know about how languages today are related to ancient languages. How do languages spread today? (mass communication, travel, language lessons) How did languages spread before writing systems? (with people moving or traveling, through the naming of new things found or introduced through trade, etc). Use Student Handout 2.3.3 to introduce the concept of language families spoken in the Mediterranean region and their geographic origins and spread. Note the issues posed in the introductory paragraph on the connection between migration and languages, and the factors that make people decide to and be able to migrate. On the map, have students trace the pathways of these languages with their finger, noticing multiple directions of migrations over time, and in relation to the Mediterranean and surrounding lands. See Christopher Ehret video (20 minutes) on Afro-Eurasian Language families and early human migration at http://www.uctv.tv/shows/CARTA-Behaviorally-Modern-Humans-The-Origin-of-Us-Christopher-Ehret-Relationships-of-Ancient-African-Languages-25397

9. Student Handout 2.3.4a and 2.3.4b introduce the difference between alphabetic/phonetic vs. pictographic language, and its impact on literacy. examples of Cuneiform, Hieroglypics (just 2), then examples of Phoenician/Punic, Tifinagh, Linear B, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew from inscriptions of the period.Compare letters across several languages for similarities using Student Handout 2.3.5.

10. ASSESSMENT/SUMMATIVE: Conduct culminating activities that relate the three areas discussed in this lesson. Make a word web based on three circles placed in a triangle with additional circles radiating from them. Groups of three students, each representing one area suggest a connection, and each of the other two name a connection in turn.

11. Summarizing what has been learned—transportation by wheel and horse, metallurgy, language groups and writing systems were changes that developed within the Mediterranean region and reached adjacent areas (near and far), or developed outside the region and arrived in the Mediterranean region. All three of these clusters of innovation had major impacts. Students review what they have learned and identify specific ways in which these changes were connected, (and marshall evidence for their ideas).

Title

Lesson 2.4: The Life and Times of Carthage

Subject

Topic 4: Power and authority

Description

This lesson gives students insights into the importance of Carthage and its connections with peoples and powers in the Mediterranean from its founding as a Phoenician colony to its defeat by the Romans, its reconstruction, and final disappearance as a city. Carthage illustrates shared Mediterranean history as port, as a place with connections across the sea, and as a player in imperial power struggles in the Mediterranean during its existence.

Creator

Susan Douglass

Source

Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean: A World History Curriculum Project for Educators

Date

Rights

Duration

1-5 class periods, depending upon allocation of reading (groups or individual, in class or flipped classroom)

Objectives

• Students will identify the Phoenicians, describe their origins and the nature of their activities in the Mediterranean region, especially related to seafaring.

• They will describe key phases in the development of the city of Carthage based on primary source narratives and study of artifacts and archaeological remains, from its founding to its demise.

• They will locate Carthage on historical maps and describe and locate its efforts to colonize and conquer territory around the Mediterranean. • They will construct a narrative of what life was like in Carthage during different phases of the city’s existence.

• They will analyze the relationship of Carthage with various groups and powers and describe their significance.

• They will make critical assessments of the written and material sources on Carthage, analyzing point of view of historical narratives, assessing what artifacts and archaeological remains can and cannot reveal.

Materials

• Student Handout 2.4.1, Timeline of Carthage from founding to the Byzantines and the Muslims

• Student Handout 2.4.5 on the nature of warfare, from Procopius on the Vandal wars

Lesson Plan Text

1. Introduce the lesson on Carthage by locating it on a map and looking at the timeline in Student Handout 2.4.1. As an introduction, show several clips from the video, (ca. 38:19 minutes for the whole, divided into various topics) “Carthage: The Rise and Fall” at http://www.ancientworldreview.com/collapse/ (The Ancient World Review). The introduction is from 0:00-1:28, a segment on building the city from 1:28-5:59, on the harbor & trade from 6:00-10:45. The rest of the video is on the contest with Rome, Hannibal, etc., which these lessons do not cover in detail. The video features 3 scholars of the period and excellent images. It could be viewed in class or assigned.

2. The next segment of the lesson covers primary sources on the founding story of Carthage, by a historian and a poet. Teachers who wish to use this material will have students compare the two (including a possible “Reader’s Theater” of the segments from the Aeneid of Virgil. Questions accompany both readings, including questions about why and how dramatic founding stories emerged.

3. The contest of empires is the usual focus of classroom study of Carthage and Rome, and usually omits the African context. Student Handout 2.4.3b provides a locator map and brief overview of Carthage’s relations with Africa, and of three groups (Garamantes, Numidians, and Mauretanians). Read these as a group or individually. The second part of the handout has two excerpts from classical sources on Africa (Pliny and Strabo) written at around the same time, both used by later Europeans. Students first read Pliny and discuss the state of knowledge about African peoples, then read and contrast the second, which shows much more detailed knowledge, but also respect, and illustrates the importance of the African coast and interior. Assign students to use Strabo’s reading to list significant ways in which Africa was important to Carthage and Rome. Pre-reading: terms are explained in brackets, but note the map in which “Libya” refers to all of known Africa. Also important are various spellings for the same group.

4. The next part of the lesson explores maps, images and artifacts of life in Punic and Roman Carthage, using Student Handouts 2.4.3a and 2.4.4. Students may be assigned in groups to read and study the images as a first exercise, and then to read the primary source accounts about Carthage from Herodotus and Aristotle, and from Polybius on what happened to the people in conquered cities. Have students work in pairs, write 10 descriptive notes from the readings, and report on their impressions of life in Punic and Roman Carthage based on the readings.

5. This lesson can stand alone as a supplement to classroom study of the Barbarian Migrations It uses Student Handout 2.4.5, a set of short readings from the Procopius’ history of the Vandal Wars. It is not intended to be read in full (except possibly by Roman war buffs or gamers). Short segments can be assigned to students in pairs, with one question each. Its purpose is to explore the nature of warfare in late Rome during the period of the Barbarian Migrations. Its subject is Justinian’s re-conquest of North Africa from the Vandals. The readings illuminate Roman relations with the tribes, their use in the army, challenges of naval warfare, and the effect of conquest on the population of the cities and surrounding peoples.

6. Historian Julia Clancy-Smith, in providing guidance for this project, stated that “Rome would not have been Rome without Carthage.” Have students create a presentation, stage a debate about whether Rome or Carthage was more important, or write an essay on what Carthage meant to the Mediterranean region. The objective is to have students marshal evidence from their use of the handouts and other learning. The introductory video is a useful tool.

]]>http://mediterraneansharedpast.org/items/show/19World History For Us All are highlighted, including the concept of the Indo-Mediterranean as an interacting zone.]]>2014-02-18T16:44:02-08:00

Title

Lesson 2.5: A Bridge Lesson on Empires of the Indo-Mediterranean in Context

Subject

Topic 4: Power and authority

Description

This brief lesson provides context for the empires that students study in detail in typical courses, by giving points of reference and framing questions about imperial expansion into and out of the region (Assyrians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Persians, Romans, Barbarian groups, then Muslims). Using course materials, maps, and timelines, the lesson encourages students to examine issues surrounding the emergence, conflict and reach of empires and their relationship to the development of civilization. World history lessons on empires from World History For Us All are highlighted, including the concept of the Indo-Mediterranean as an interacting zone.

Creator

Susan Douglass

Source

Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean: A World History Curriculum Project for Educators

Date

Rights

Duration

Varies, depending on manner of use intermittently throughout the course

Objectives

• Students will be able to locate major Bronze and Iron Age empires that impacted the Mediterranean on maps and timelines

• They will identify the factors that made empire-building possible, as well as the motivations of rulers in setting out on expansionist ventures.

• Comparing and contrasting the successes and failures of empires, students will analyze factors that influenced continuity and change at the level of empires

• They will differentiate between empire and civilization as historical concepts, and describe the relationship between imperial power and cultural development

• They will identify regions and societies in the Mediterranean region (broadly considered) that were drawn into the contests for empire, and describe their responses to the threat of invasion or absorption over time.

• As they work through the world history survey, they will consider the earliest Mediterranean empires and those in other world regions, and be able to draw comparisons, using the questions discussed about this era.

• World History For Us All Landscape Units for Era 4: 4.1, “From the Mediterranean to India: Patterns of power and trade, 1200 - 600 BCE”; 4.4, “From the Mediterranean to India: An age of Greek and Persian power, 600 - 200 BCE”; 4.5, “Giant empires of Afroeurasia, 300 BCE - 200 CE”

• Student handout 2.5.1 with questions for studying empires.

Lesson Plan Text

1. This lesson can be used to preview a unit on the ancient and classical period in the Mediterranean, or it can be used to close out such a unit. The purpose is to encourage students to question the civilizational narratives of Mediterranean powers as “belonging” to the Mediterranean vs. being outside intruders. By comparing what they learn in their textbook and other course materials in a framework of shared Mediterranean histories, they will explore changing, overlapping imperial maps and ask fundamental questions, exploring what it took to become a Mediterreanean imperial player and sustain empire (or not). This lesson also draws upon learnings from the other lessons and readings in this module, such as texts and images about moving armies, the composition of armies, transportation technologies, food, etc.

2. Use maps of empires during the period from textbook, atlas, or other source), Maps of War animation (90 seconds) at http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html) to show how Mediterranean territory was contested among empires over time, and from what geographic positions the empires expanded. Have students use the States & Cites Timeline from Module 1 to make a list of empires from 900 BCE to 700 CE.

3. Use Student Handout 2.5.1 as a guide for questioning empires. Divide students either by assigning specific empires or selected questions and have them work through in discussion.

4. Use the WHFUA Panorama lesson & Powerpoint slides, as well as Landscape Units listed above for Era 4, on the Mediterranean and the rise of large states in world history.

5. The lesson methodology can be applied throughout the course. In this era, students learn about the major contests among Greeks, Persians, Romans, Carthaginians, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Huns, etc. A major objective of this exercise is to have students explore the idea of the Mediterranean as “a closed sea connected to many places” (see Module 1, Lesson 3, the annotated map activity, which can be continued for this time period). Accordingly, they use what they have learned to find examples of empires’ connections to the wider Afroeurasian land/sea relationships during a time of expansion.

6. Teachers can repeat this questioning exercise for the next era, incorporating and modifying the questions. Students can assess and formulate questions about empires of the next era (Module 3) and beyond. Which of the questions about Mediterranean empires apply to the next period? What questions need to be discarded, and what new questions should be added? This inquiry process can continue throughout the course, including the European imperial powers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

]]>http://mediterraneansharedpast.org/items/show/20Lesson 2.6: Religious Imagery and Ideas in the Mediterranean over Time]]>2014-02-18T16:44:02-08:00

Title

Lesson 2.6: Religious Imagery and Ideas in the Mediterranean over Time

Subject

Topic 6: Spiritual Life

Description

This lesson invites students to appreciate the variety of religious experience in the Mediterranean region through objects that express religious imagery, and through texts that express religious concepts. The lesson is designed to suggest connections and comparisons rather than to provide an overview of any one tradition, which teachers would do in connection with closer study of various civilizations in the region. The Mediterranean was a region of exchange and dissemination of religious ideas and practices traces the emergence and spread of narratives, belief systems and migrations during the long period covered by this module.

Creator

Susan Douglass

Source

Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean: A World History Curriculum Project for Educators

Date

Rights

Duration

1 class period for imagery activity + 1-2 for texts activity (depending on the number of group rounds with the 10 texts)

Objectives

• Students will identify common and divergent motifs and images used in artwork and texts to express divinity and the sacred, from polytheistic to monotheistic traditions, and be able to compare themes in religious imagery.

• They will identify some major texts and trends in religious literature, scripture and thought during the period from 1500 BCE to 700 CE and important people and groups associated with them

• They will analyze texts to trace aspects of the development of ideas about the human condition, the soul, and concepts of divinity and the relationship of humankind to the divine over time and among traditions.

• They will analyze and compare religious and philosophical texts for the ideas that they convey.

Lesson Plan Text

1. Distribute Handout 2.6.1, scissors, adhesive and butcher paper for each of several small groups (2-4). If this lesson is done toward the end of a unit on the era, have students recall the religious images they have already learned about. If it is done early, have them recall some imagery from prior learning. How have deities been portrayed, and what visual symbols have been used in different cultures? With this introduction, students will cut apart the images with their identifying tags and look at them. Note: in this activity, each group will do the same work and compare differing results at the end. Each group’s task is to categorize the images of sacred objects, deities, and spaces. I have already created categories in the handout, but hid them in white text (view by clicking “Select All” and scroll through the file); they are Mother and Child Images, Female Figures, Enthroned God as King and Warrior, Sun and Moon as Deities, Altars and Sacrifice, Acts of Worship, Winged Representations. Students will create other categories that may mix the ones created in the handout (since they are cutting apart the images this will be easier).

2. Enrichment: (a) Have students locate the objects’ pictured on a map by their place of origin. This will provide a basis for making comparisons and proposing connections. (b) Increase the number of images in the activity by adding houses of worship, art objects and scenes portraying public and private worship, and categorize them. Other handouts, such as those on Ugarit and the Uluburun shipwreck, also contain images of cult objects. See also images of places of worship in Student Handout 2.6.2 on religious texts.

3. When charts are complete, share the results from each group and discuss the findings. Ask why they chose the categories, and how they decided what belonged in each? What connections around spiritual imagery in the Mediterranean region seem to have occurred over time? Why did certain concepts and deities become part of the shared heritage of several cultures, even to the point that art historians cannot be sure which deity some objects portray? How did socieities concepts of the sacred come to be shared, even after the spread of monotheistic Abrahamic religion? Did this cause controversy? Did any group categorize objects according to public and private worship?

4. This may serve as a review activity for teaching about religions during this formative period.

Lesson Procedure: Religious Texts

1. Refer to Student Handout 2.6.2 to identify selected texts for these activities, and to decide which texts to assign to groups of students. The handout includes 10 texts from religious sources ranging over a period from about 15th century BCE to the 6th century CE, from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, to Jewish, Christian and Islamic scripture and thought. Divide students into groups of 2-4. Each group will read and discuss the questions for 2-3 texts only. It is up to the teacher to decide how to distribute them, depending on the topics and level of detail in religious history studied in relation to this period and to the Mediterranean region as a whole. Copy only as many handouts as needed for the groups assigned to the readings.

2. There are many ways to group the texts. For example, Texts 1 & 2 are hymns to the Egyptian and Greek sun gods; Texts 3 & 10 are versions of the Abrahamic story of the sacrifice from Jewish and Islamic scriptures (with reference to Christian scripture online); Texts 5 & 6 compare Plato with the Hellenistic Philo on the soul, but they could both be compared with 1 & 2, the hymns, for the concept of the sacred. The texts from Pliny and Paul explore the fledgling Christian community and its challenges. There are many other creative ways to challenge students to see connections and contrasts.

3. Post the titles of Texts 1-10 and the names of the students in each group and their assigned texts on the board. This will be needed for the second round (and third if there is time)

4. Each text has two questions associated with it. Depending on which texts are combined in the groups, some of the questions may refer to texts that other groups are assigned—save these for discussion time. Have students develop 2 additional questions for each text and try to answer them in writing. When the groups have completed their reading and discussion internally, have each present a 2 minute overview of their text (who, when, what tradition, and a sense of what it’s about). Each group then chooses another group with which to meet and discuss their texts in terms of what they have in common (or don’t). The idea of these two rounds is to get a sense of what spiritual concerns people had, and what they felt moved to act upon in terms of ritual, ways of life, etc. Secondly, to analyze how these religious figures saw the relationship between humans and the divine, or God, and what that meant for the human condition.

5. After these two rounds, 1 person from the paired groups will present to the whole group for 2-3 minutes on the ideas they discussed with the group they chose. As a summative activity, pull 3 or 4 ideas from the discussions and explore them with relation to several of the 10 texts, comparing and contrasting. 6. An assessment could involve a writing assignment in which the students choose one or more texts to read more closely and to compare, using the questions as prompts for a paragraph or longer piece, either the prepared questions on the handout or ones generated by the students themselves in the first round. 7. Extension: Students may research one or more of the religious figures associated with the text and read beyond the excerpts to gain a fuller sense of their thought and its impact.